Map of Native American etymologies for āhorseā. There were no horses in the Americas before the colonists arrived. Native Americans quickly developed new words for this strange animal, often associating them with dogs, their one other domestic animal before contact with Europe.
@coyotecure your tags have me cackling omfg
Mystery dogā¦
I love how this just shows that even way back then one of the most basic human responses to a new animal was, as it is today, āwhaohhh look at that weird dogā
Clearly the Ojibwe and Illinois peoples latched on to the cosmic horror aspect of the horse
itās not really cosmic horror. Thatās pretty much just the scientific classification we use for horses today akaĀ Odd-toed ungulates andĀ Even-toed ungulates.
Itās more interesting that thatās how they differentiated them from bisons and elks who are both even-toed.
